10 Ideas for Descriptive Writing

In fiction, we describe settings and characters. In poetry, we describe scenes, experiences, and emotions. In creative nonfiction, we describe reality.

Classic literature was dense with description whereas modern literature usually keeps description to a minimum.

Compare the elaborate descriptions in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy with the descriptions in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Both series relied on description to help the readers visualize an imagined, fantastical world, but Rowling did not use her precious writing space to describe standard settings whereas Tolkien frequently paused all action and spent pages describing a single landscape.

This isn’t unique to Tolkien and Rowling; if you compare most literature from the beginning of of the 20th century and earlier to today’s work, you’ll see that we just don’t dedicate much time and space to description anymore.

I think this radical change in how we approach description is directly tied to the wide availability of film, television, and photography. Let’s say you were living in the 19th century, writing a story about a tropical island for an audience of northern, urban readers. You could be fairly certain that most of your readers had never seen such an island and had no idea what it looked like. To give your audience a full sense of your story’s landscape, you’d need pages of detail describing the lush jungle, sandy beaches, and warm waters.

Nowadays, we all know what a tropical island looks like, thanks to the wide availability of media. Even if you’ve never been to such an island, surely you’ve seen one on TV.

Descriptive Writing in the 21st Century

This might explain why few books on the craft of writing address descriptive writing. The focus is usually on other elements, like character, plot, theme, and structure. While modern readers don’t require lengthy descriptions, descriptive writing is an essential skill, even in the 21st century.

For contemporary writers, the trick is to make the description as precise and detailed as possible while keeping it to a minimum. Most readers want characters and action with just enough description so that they can imagine the story as it’s unfolding.

Descriptive writing is especially important for speculative fiction writers and poets. If you’ve created a fantasy world, then you’ll need to deftly describe it to readers. Lewis Carroll not only described Wonderland; he also described the fantastical creatures that inhabited it. In poetry, the challenge is to describe things in a way that is visceral.

Simple descriptions are surprisingly easy to execute. All you have to do is look at something (or imagine it) and write what you see. But well crafted descriptions require writers to pay diligence to word choice, to describe only those elements that are most important, and to use engaging language to paint a picture in the reader’s mind.

10 Descriptive Writing Ideas

Here are some descriptive writing ideas that will inspire you while providing opportunities to practice writing description. If you don’t have much experience with descriptive writing, you may find that your first few attempts are flat and boring. If you can’t keep readers engaged, they will wander off. Work at crafting descriptions that are compelling and mesmerizing.

Go to one of your favorite spots and write a description of the setting: it could be your bedroom, favorite coffee shop, or local park. Leave people, dialogue, and action out of it. Just focus on explaining what the space looks like.

Who is your favorite character from the movies? Describe the character from head to toe. Show the reader not only what the character looks like but also how the character acts. Do this without including action or dialogue. Remember: description only!

Thirty years ago we didn’t have cell phones or the Internet. Now we have cell phones that can access the Internet. Think of a device or gadget that we’ll have thirty years from now and describe it.

Since modern fiction is light on description, many young and new writers often fail to include descriptions, even when the reader needs them. Go through one of your writing projects and check to see that elements readers may not be familiar with are adequately described.

Sometimes in a narrative, a little description provides respite from all the action and dialogue. Make a list of things from a story you’re working on (gadgets, characters, settings, etc.) and for each one, write a short description of no more than 75 words.

As mentioned, Tolkien often spent pages describing a single landscape. Choose one of your favorite pieces of classic literature, find a long passage of description, and rewrite it. Try to cut the descriptive word count in half.

When you read a book, use a highlighter to mark sentences and paragraphs that contain description. Don’t highlight every adjective and adverb. Look for longer passages that are dedicated to description.

Write a description for a child. Choose something reasonably difficult, like the solar system. How do you describe it in such a way that a child understands how he or she fits into it?

Most writers dream of someday writing a book. Describe your book cover.

Write a one-page description of yourself.

If you have any descriptive writing ideas to add to this list, feel free to share them in the comments.

About Melissa DonovanMelissa Donovan is a website designer and copywriter. She writes fiction and poetry and is the founder and editor of Writing Forward, a blog packed with creative writing tips and ideas.

Comments

As you know, I write short stories and flash fiction. My shorts are usually under 2500 words and my flash is always less than 1000 words and sometimes as short as 100 words.

Given those constraints, I always strive to use power words to create mood. I can’t recommend enough the paperbook still on Amazon from my high school days, 30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary.

Since Showing is more important than Telling, my writer’s mind acts like a movie camera, vividly showing what my lens sees in quick, MTV-style clips.

My writing is filled with other sensory cues: kitchen smells, gourmet tastes, street sounds, feelings on the skin, hair or other parts of the reader’s body, like goosebumps, blushing, or even sexual responses when appropriate.

Being the son of a classical pianist, I have learned that musical cues really help define a sense of place in time. Rock ‘n roll, rap, classical, jazz, Latin — all help conjure up their own word pictures.

Knowing about how scientific phenomena work helps a lot. Why stars “twinkle,” how rainbows are created, how ocean waves come in to shore, things like that.

And most of all, I write what I know: how to be a husband, a brother, a grandfather, a father, a friend, a world traveller, a victim of bullying, a soldier, an Amateur Radio operator, a spiritual person, an admirer of Native American lifeways, a sales executive, a writer, a reader, a lover of music, a photographer, and a person driven by my need to learn all about the world in which we live.

Stir all this into the mix, bake at 350F for an hour or so and inevitablly what comes out of the oven is a delicious short story that satisfies the hungry reader.

What a great comment, Wayne! You’ve explained a lot about short story writing in a single comment. These are wonderful insights — not just for short story writing, but for story writing in general. Thanks!

Great suggestions, Melissa. In my experience, writers often tend to get away from just practicing the art of writing once they are outside of a classroom setting. Instead they jump right into their latest project. It’s like a professional sports team only showing up on game day.

These exercises are essential to honing our skills and becoming the best writer we can become. And with better writing comes more effective story-telling, better characters, and ultimately more satisfaction (and possibly money). Thanks for the tips!

I love it! I’m a big fan of descriptive writing. But it’s important to remember that too much descriptive writing can detract from the story. When a descriptive adjective becomes superfluous to the story, it becomes clutter. As you say, “the trick is to make the description as precise and detailed as possible while keeping it to a minimum.” Great advice!

Also…would you be willing to do a guest post on my blog sometime? I want to start incorporating guest posts on my blog to broaden the views of writing. Let me know! Thanks.

Regarding guest posts, that is something better handled privately via email. However, if you’ve decided to start accepting guest posts, I can make a suggestion, which is to simply publish a post announcing that you will now accept guest posts. Then, let your readers approach you with offers. You can also add a Submissions page outlining your submission guidelines. Good luck!

I have self-published 18 novels ranging from spy, murder, kidnapping, robbery, and pioneer western. I have a small following–they really like my descriptive language. I am 80 years old and grew up before TV–only radio. And it was driven by a 6 Volt car battery and a B+ battery. We had no electricity on the ranch.

One of my readers is 92 and can hardly wait for my next novel. He grew up with a crystal radio and could only pick up WHO Des Moines.